It looks like their hard work paid off because Drake and Future are projected to have a huge opening week for What a Time to be Alive.
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This surprise mixtape was hinted at by Drake and Future on social media Saturday, premiered on Beats 1 Radio Sunday, then released exclusively on iTunes and Apple Music.
In terms of rappers from different area codes that join forces for a mixtape, Drake and Future are one of the strangest pairs we’ve seen in a minute.
99 percent of the time, a collab mixtape with Drake would seem like a favor to the other rapper involved, as he’s one of the most recognizable dudes in the game, worldwide. Not only has 2015 been the most astounding year in rap music this decade, but Future and Drake have both spoiled their fandoms with well-received, still relevant deliveries just months apart.
On the parts of the album that don’t sound like Drake is forcibly being made to have fun, the closest he comes to resonating on the same emotional level as Future is on “30 for 30”, the last track on the album, the sole one produced by 40, which starts by Drake detailing the Illuminati-esque meeting that was held to assure his downfall. It was like a trap Watch The Throne, but featured a lot more references to lean (colloquial for recreational codeine). Boomin just turned 22, and after four years of prominent beatmaking, he’s looking like the least formulaic mainstream trap producer around. This song includes natural sounds like a crow squawking and a woodpecker burrowing to fill in the middle range of the bass heavy track. On “Digital Dash” while Future raps about sleeping on the floor and fighting his demons with pharmaceuticals, Drake talks about dating a girl that makes more money than him and how she reminds him of a quarterback because “that shit is all in the past”. But the unfortunate chunk of the equation is simply that What A Time To Be Alive only took six days to make – and it sounds like it. During these R&B detours I missed Future’s raspy, mumbling raps, and was met with Future singing, a guy with no business singing. However, it has the aesthetic of a mixtape. Not only could most of this fit on any Future tape, but Drake’s time on the mic is dwarfed by Future’s. Drake may not be from Atlanta, or really have much street credibility, but he adds commercial accessibility to the madness, and it’s a good mixture of styles. The two remain autonomous with their raps: Drake, with his stories about women who strip to pay for college (“Scholarships”) and Future with his love of Percocet and cough syrup mixed with Sprite.
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Future’s somewhat aligned himself with psychedelia for his entire career (you don’t call yourself Hendrix unless you’re at least a bit trippy), but that influence on his music has only recently become dominant.
